Over the last two decades, trade agreements have come to include increasingly draconian digital regulations. Dozens of bilateral trade deals have already passed, and have led to nations enacting ever more restrictive copyright enforcement provisions that harm users' right to hack, make, and tinker with digital devices and software. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) are two sprawling trade agreements that are currently being negotiated in secret, and they too threaten to carry these provisions. This presentation will cover the various ways these international deals threaten free software, as well as discuss what we can do to stop them from continuing to circumvent accountability while raising the global standards of copyright enforcement in the dark.
Speakers: Maira Sutton